Summer in Taiwan: Midnight Outing

Salaam. Sorry for the almost one month long of hiatus, LOL. The things that happened during this almost-one-month-of-hiatus are:

1. Inter-semester vacation

2. Beijing trip with my classmates of 4 years!

3. I have a new baby, which explains why my first-born aka the laptop of 6 years 'di-anaktirikan' , haha.

2nd child

4. Just got my exam results! I am happy!!! One step further towards becoming a researcher! Ameen!!!

Anyway, let's continue with this Summer in Taiwan series (I miss typing on a real keyboard!!! :/) 

After the Auction Night had ended (nothing special about this), we headed back to the hotel, supposedly to get some rest. But being the adventurous us (all 5 of us girls), we decided to take this opportunity to explore (kinda) the area around our hotel.

Well, it's too bad that it had already passed midnight and most of the shops had closed (99%) but anyway, we were craving for some adventures! 

Not good in taking pictures at night. I don't know how to set the light setting, bla bla bla (noob photographer, I am). You could see from the annoying details at the right hand corner of the picture that it was 12.51 am!!! MIDNIGHT!!! 

Another hotel

Yeah, it was this dark!~

And funnily, there was a university located along the street, haha. 

The only shop that was opened 24/7 was/is the good old 7/11, haha. There were an abundance of 7-Elevens in Taipei, each one located at quite a close distance with the next one. 

Oh, these were my absolute favourites when I was in Taipei. Banana Milk (can't find it in Malaysia, insya Allah, Halal) and a Vegetarian onigiri. Hehe. 

They even have sitting places for us to devour our foods, just like those in the Japanese dramas! 

Hygiene freak. Which is a good thing. The chopsticks and straws were wrapped. 

Vegetarian noodles. We met this Malaysia Airlines Pilot at our hotel (a Malaysian Malay) and he gave us info on which food is halal, and which is not. 

So, basically, that's it! And oh, we were supposed to walk back to our hotel but....we spotted a big black dog guarding its master's (?) shop, as we were about to go there, the dog barked at us and was ready to attack us. It was a 90% possibility. And you know what we did? We took a taxi back to our hotel, and it was like less than 100m away! pfftt! And we were being charged extra dollars because it was past midnight. So much for an adventure, huh? Tsk Tsk.

Okay, moving on to the next post. I gotta do this fast, or else I'd procrastinate! Hahaha 

Mastering the Craft of Life

The life so short,

 the craft so long to learn.

Geoffrey Chaucer

(c. 1340-1400)

It's 4.51am, studying for the last paper of the semester. Please pray for my success (and my friends' too!). 

Summer in Taiwan: Taipei 101 and Halal Beef Noodles

The Taiwan posts will be posted randomly, in no chronological order. 

So yes! We went to Taipei 101, which is the 2nd tallest building in the world! The ticket costs NT$400, which is about RM40. Just like KLCC, Taipei 101 is also a shopping mall and hosts offices for companies. To get the bird's eye view (so-called) of the city of Taipei, we took the high speed elevator to the top of the bamboo-like tower, The Taipei 101 Observatory. 

Image above is googled 

Taipei 101! 

The spectacular views from above

Sunset! 

And oh, on our last day in Taiwan, we went to the Beef Noodle Halal Restaurant

Beef noodle without spicy sauce (which tastes bland)- not mine :P 

My spicy beef noodle, which doesn't taste SPICY at all (at least to my liking). 

It was quite delicious, and I reckon it tastes better than the one without spicy sauce.

Rasa Halal Astro pernah datang sini. 

I couldn't remember the price of one bowl of beef noodle, but it was quite pricey (more than RM10 per bow), probably because it is halal, and it's difficult to find a Muslim who slaughters the cow, or maybe because the meats are imported from Muslim countries/anywhere with halal meats (okay what's with this sentence).

THE END 

Summer in Taiwan: Of Maokong Gondola Ride and Stinky Tofu

Okay, so Kak Timi, Fatt and Kak Elle had arrived and we stayed together in the same room. End of Day 1.

For Day 2, we checked out from the hostel and took the MRT and later, the taxi to our hotel, Holiday Inn Taipei! :D

After checking in, talking to some of the participants there, we decided to just walk around to see what the place has in store for us.

The Walk-around was in the form of taking a bus to the Maokong Station! :P

 The APPS committees brought us to the base of Maokong Mountain, Taipei, where we had taken a cable car ride to the top of the mountain. 

You could choose between 'Normal Cable Car' or 'Clear Glass Floor Cable Car'!

Being the adventurous sort of people, we naturally opted for the latter. :)

The return fare is about NT$50, which about RM5.00 if I'm not mistaken. 

 Fatt and a cute Taiwanese girl. I-forgot-your-name sorry!!! Dx

And presenting.......

THE STINKY TOFU!!!!!

Atiqah treated us the 'Stinky Tofu'. It's basically Tofu that were fermented for several days, thus giving itself the characteristic putrid scent that is its name 'Stinky'. We doubted the 'halal' status of it at first, but Atiqah was very sure that it was halal so we went ahead to each of us having one piece. I couldn't even stomach one piece of it. So, yeah, one piece it is then. I'm not going to try it another time.

And oh, Fatt googled about 'Stinky Tofu' after we got back to Malaysia. She said that all the ingredients are halal and it basically suits the vegetarians so INSYA ALLAH, it is HALAL. :D But of course, it's up to you whether you wanted to try it or not. If ragu-ragu, tak payah makan lah.

EDIT: Now I'm feeling dubious about its Halal status. I'm not going to eat it next time. :(

How to describe its smell?

You know the smell when the garbage collectors' lorry passed along your house to collect the garbage? It was a bit like that. 

It tasted very sour due to the fermentation process and I had to gulp it down with my bubble tea because I really couldn't bear to chew it... Dx.
Ridzuan said that he couldn't really taste the sourness and the stinky-ness of the tofu as his sweet fragrant jasmine tea kinds of masked the taste and smell of it.

The committee members also treated us to 2 bowls of ice-taufufa.

After the early afternoon snack, we walked along the path leading to the Tea Plantation Factory.

It was quite a long journey by foot, and along the way, we stopped by a very quaint Tea Shop. It's like a coffee shop, but it sells...TEA. Yeah, haha. Maokong Mountain is like Malaysia's 'Cameron Highlands'.

I lost some of the pics in my camera so this is the only one picture that I could get from facebook.

Once we reached there, we were being self-served (LOL) with fresh hot tea.

Different types of Tea 

Tea-leaves machine-sort of.

And we went back to the Maokong Station and once again took the Gondola to the base of the mountain. :)

We went back to the hotel, Holiday Inn Taipei by bus. The hotel is awesome of course. Two people per room. Atiqah was my roommate throughout the entire stay. We had great time together, cracking weird jokes, laughing our heads off every night. :D

I do not know the exact rates of the rooms of this hotel, as the rate has been included in our registration fees.

My oh-so-comfortable BED! :D

Can't believe I actually jumped into the bandwagon by posting pictures of bathrooms! 

THE END.